André Rivet

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He was born at Saint-Maixent, 43 km (27 mi) southwest of Poitiers, France. After completing his education at Berne, he studied theology privately at Berne and La Rochelle, and from 1595 to 1620 was at Thouars, first as chaplain of the duke of La Trémouille and later as pastor. In 1617 he was elected president of the Synod at Vitré; and in 1620 he was called to Leiden as professor of theology.

In 1632 Stadholder Frederick Henry appointed Rivet tutor of his son, later William II, while the university made him honorary professor. In 1641 he attended the prince on his visit to England, and in 1646 was appointed as the first Rector of the new Orange College of Breda, where he passed the remainder of his life and died. Archibald Alexander devotes a chapter of his Thoughts on Religious Experience to Rivet's "death-bed exercises".

A learned Reformed theologian (or, less accurately, a Calvinist) and a relentless apologist of the Reformed faith against the attacks of the Roman Catholic Church, Rivet was in his day the most influential member of the theological faculty of Leyden; and together with his colleagues he drew up, in 1625, the Synopsis purioris theologiae, a series of 52 academic disputations covering the main topics of Reformed theology. At Leyden Rivet also worked in the field Old Testament exegesis.

His numerous writings are divided among polemics, exegesis, dogmatics, and edification. They were collected in three volumes (Rotterdam, 1651–53), one of the most notable being the Isagoge ad scripturam sacram Veteris et Novi Testamenti (Dort, 1616).